Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

The galaxy population in cold and warm dark matter cosmologies

Wang, L.; Gonzalez-Perez, V.; Xie, L.; Cooper, A.P.; Frenk, C.S.; Gao, L.; Hellwing, W.A.; Helly, J.; Lovell, M.R.; Jiang, L.

The galaxy population in cold and warm dark matter cosmologies Thumbnail


Authors

L. Wang

V. Gonzalez-Perez

L. Xie

A.P. Cooper

L. Gao

W.A. Hellwing

J. Helly

L. Jiang



Abstract

We use a pair of high-resolution N-body simulations implementing two dark matter models, namely the standard cold dark matter (CDM) cosmogony and a warm dark matter (WDM) alternative where the dark matter particle is a 1.5 keV thermal relic. We combine these simulations with the GALFORM semi-analytical galaxy formation model to explore differences between the resulting galaxy populations. We use GALFORM model variants for CDM and WDM that result in the same z = 0 galaxy stellar mass function by construction. We find that most of the studied galaxy properties have the same values in these two models, indicating that both dark matter scenarios match current observational data equally well. Even in underdense regions, where discrepancies in structure formation between CDM and WDM are expected to be most pronounced, the galaxy properties are only slightly different. The only significant difference in the local universe we find is in the galaxy populations of ‘Local Volumes’, regions of radius 1–8 Mpc around simulated Milky Way analogues. In such regions, our WDM model provides a better match to observed local galaxy number counts and is five times more likely than the CDM model to predict subregions within them that are as empty as the observed Local Void. Thus, a highly complete census of the Local Volume and future surveys of void regions could provide constraints on the nature of dark matter.

Citation

Wang, L., Gonzalez-Perez, V., Xie, L., Cooper, A., Frenk, C., Gao, L., …Jiang, L. (2017). The galaxy population in cold and warm dark matter cosmologies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 468(4), 4579-4591. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx788

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 28, 2017
Online Publication Date Apr 1, 2017
Publication Date Jul 11, 2017
Deposit Date Jul 18, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Electronic ISSN 1365-2966
Publisher Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 468
Issue 4
Pages 4579-4591
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx788

Files

Published Journal Article (1.3 Mb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2017. The Authors.
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.





You might also like



Downloadable Citations